2014 Ukrainian Maidan Revolt: News, Views, Photos & Videos

Mr T said:

If that's the case, why doesn't anyone know where he is? If he was going to make a stand, he would be all over the media from a stronghold somewhere.

The fact he has disappeared (and reportedly dismissed his security detail) suggests he has done a runner because he thinks he'll be arrested if he sticks about. Going to Eastern Ukraine wouldn't necessarily help because there are still many people that think he's a murdering crook and would try to grab him.

Even if he does resurface somewhere in Ukraine, the fact he has fled will have seriously damaged his image, even amongst many of his supporters.

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Miragedriver said:

...where he gave a television interview on Saturday night denouncing the Kiev protesters who overthrew him as Nazis, and later in his home town of Donetsk.

Another thing that lead to the assumption that he may be organizing a new government is that Dmitry Medvedev denounced the armed mutiny and that it is not legitimate.

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Jeff Head said:

He and Russia cannot have it both ways.

Yes, he won an election in a very close contest and was dully elected. But his policies also led to great upheavel, rioting, unrest, and the death of many citizens.

But that violence alone is not what stands as his undoing...nor should it be.

He was impeached by the Ukrainian parliment on Saturday, according to the provisions of the Ukrainian constitution and officially and legally removed from office.

So yes, he was constitutionally elected...but now he has also been constitutionally removed from office.

He is no loinger the President and they will have to have new elections, which will be held.

For him, or Russia, to try and in any way name a new government with him at the head would be unconstituional and a crime against the Ukranian constitution at this point. I do not see it happeneing.

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Jeff Head said:

He and Russia cannot have it both ways.

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Miragedriver said:

That is what makes this entire situation very confusing. Too many contradictions and people switching sides. The only thing I can say with a certain degree of confidence is that I don’t think the Russians will ever willingly give up the Crimea.

The next few days, or week should be very interesting and be the topic of conversation and postings.

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chuck731 said:

Yanukovich had been the face of the hated pro-Kremlin faction since 2004, and the the struggle between pro-western and pro-Russian faction over the years between the orange revolutionaries and the Kremlin fraction has largely been a struggle to keep Yanukovich from assuming power in Ukraine. So I think to the pro-west faction that just gained power in Kiev, Yanukovich is more like Nicolai Ceausescu, the head and embodiement of evil of their enemies, than Li Pen, a mere high ranking apparatchik who happen to be in power when blood was shed,

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chuck731 said:

To be honest, we don't know what the laws and customs of Ukraine actually are, nor whether the impeachment really has a priori legal basis, or whether the pro-west fraction simply made it up as they went to sanctify a coup ex post facto with a more legal sounding term. I suspect it is a little more of the latter.

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Jeff Head said:

I suspect that it is more accurate to say that Russia will not give up its naval base at Sevastapol on the Black Sea.

They gave up the whole of the Crimea to Ukraine, long ago under the USSR and Nikita Khrushchev. The Presidium of the Supreme Council gathered for a session on February 19, 1954 and voted unanimously to do so.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, it has remained with the Ukraine. However, it is an autonomus region of the Ukraine.

But, the Naval base at Sevastapol, like the US Naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba, is something else again. The US has never given it to Cuba...I suspect at the very least, the Russian base will fall into the same category.

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Jeff Head said:

Well, Chuck, perhaps it would be honest for you to operate under such an assumption...but that is simply because you are perhaps not familiar with the Ukrainian Constitution.

But please do not cast that particular judgment upon others. The Ukraine Constitution does have provisions for the impeachement of the President in Chapter V, Article 111. In Article 112, it plainly states that the Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (Parliment) will then assume presidential powers until elections are held for a new President.

The Ukrainian parliament acted upon those provisions under law.

In order to impeach the President, he must be convicted high crimes first by a two-thirds constitutional majority in the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) with 300 ayes, who must support a procedure of impeachment. An investigative commission is established by the parliament at that point for an impeachment investigation. The commission's final conclusions are then considered at a parliamentary meeting.

At that meeting, in order to convict and remove the President from office, a minimum three-quarters of parliament must support the resolution.

In the event that a President is impeached, the Chairman of the Parliament becomes the acting president until a new president is elected. This is in Article 112. The acting president is not given the authority to address the nation or parliament, or to dismiss the legislative branch, or to appoint candidates for parliamentary approval of government, or to judicial posts. The acting president can also not call for any referendum, he cannot grant military ranks, or issue state orders, or exercise the right of pardon as a normal President can.

As it is, the Ukrainian Parliament went through with all of this and now it is done...and done according to their Constitution.

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